White. — A Philological Study. 145 



trag-ikos, literally goatish. One authority gives the explana- 

 tion that a he goat was the prize given for the best tragic 

 poem in a competition, "probably," as Professor Skeat says, 

 " because a goat (as the spoiler of the vines) was sacrificed 

 to the Greek god Dionysus (Latin, Bacchus)." This latter 

 theory, however, will not explain the connection between a 

 goat and the tragic poem. 



It is worthy of note that, in the German, zeigel and geiss are 

 used in the feminine only, as denoting the she goat, as though 

 they, being the more numerous members of the flock (fifty to 

 one against the male animal — bock), gave the designation to 

 the species. In olden times the males of the flock were 

 chiefly killed for food, which is well shown in the Bible 

 stories of entertainment of visitors and sacrificial rites. Ob- 

 serve the following : Zeigel-bock and geiss-bock, a male goat ; 

 geiss-rebe = goat-vine, the honeysuckle — i.e., the climber : 

 perhaps from this Professor Skeat connects the goat and 

 the vine, as "the spoiler of the vines": also geiss-blatt 

 ("goat-leaf"), the honeysuckle; geiss-melker, the bird goat- 

 sucker or night-jar, in French teite-chevre, teat goat. 



The goat being the earliest of the truly domesticated 

 animals tamed by man, gives us the word butcher, through 

 French bone ; old French hoc, a male goat; French, bouch-er; 

 mid-English, bocker, a butcher (literally, "one who kills 

 goats"). The name bukka, a goat, extends even to the Sans- 

 krit ; but in German a butcher is fleischer, fleisch-hacker, and 

 fleisch-hauer , derived from fleisch, flesh or meat. 



In the word pheasant we are reminded that this game-bird 

 was of comparatively late introduction to the forests of 

 Europe, the name being derived from Phasis, a river in 

 Colchis, to the east of the Euxine or Black Sea. 



The domestic fowl is said to have reached Europe 600 B.C., 

 but was domesticated in China 1200 B.C., and it is remark- 

 able that the sexes of other birds should in many European 

 languages be named after those of the domestic fowl. As 

 the goat denoted the sex in certain animals, so the use of 

 cock and hen signified the sexes of birds. 



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